Abstract
BACKGROUND: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a significant medical complication of pregnancy that requires close monitoring by a multidisciplinary health care team. The growing sophistication of mobile health (mHealth) technology could play a significant supporting role for women with GDM and health professionals (HPs) regarding GDM management. OBJECTIVE: This study included 2 phases. The aim of phase 1 was to explore the perceptions of HPs and women with GDM regarding the use of mHealth for GDM self-management and to identify their needs from these technologies. The aim of phase 2 was to explore the perceptions of women with GDM about their experiences with a state-of-the-art app for managing GDM that was offered to them during the COVID-19 lockdown. This phase aimed to understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on women's perceptions about using technology to manage their GDM. By combining both phases, the overall aim was to establish how perceptions about GDM self-management technology have changed owing to the pandemic restrictions and experience of using such technology. METHODS: In total, 26 semistructured interviews were conducted in 2 phases. In phase 1, overall, 62% (16/26) of the participants, including 44% (7/16) of HPs, 50% (8/16) of women with GDM, and 6% (1/16) of women in the postpartum period with GDM history participated in the interviews. In phase 2, overall, 38% (10/26) of women with GDM participated in the interviews. NVivo (QSR International) was used to extract qualitative data, which were subjected to thematic analysis. RESULTS: Phase 1 identified 3 themes from the interviews with women with GDM: fitting with women's lifestyle constraints, technology's design not meeting women's needs, and optimizing the technology's design to meet women's needs. Overall, 3 themes were derived from the interviews with HPs: optimizing the technology's design to improve the quality of care, technology to support women's independence, and limitations in the care system and facilities. Analysis of phase-2 interviews identified 2 further themes: enhancing the information and functionalities and optimizing the interface design. In both phases, participants emphasized a simple and user-friendly interface design as the predominant positive influence on their use of technology for GDM management. CONCLUSIONS: The combined findings underlined similar points. Poor usability, data visualization limitations, lack of personalization, limited information, and lack of communication facilities were the prime issues of current GDM self-management mHealth technology that need to be addressed. The analysis also revealed how women with GDM should play a vital role in gathering the requirements for GDM self-management technology; some needs were identified from in-depth discussion with women with GDM that would be missed without their involvement.